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Chapter XIX

Continues the account of the Foundation at Salamanca.

I have made a long digression, because when something occurs to me which it has pleased the Lord I should know by experience, I do not like not setting it down. It may be that what I think right is right. Always ask counsel, my daughters, of learned men; for in learning you will find the way of perfection with discretion and truth. It is very necessary for Prioresses, if they would fulfil their office aright, to make their confession to learned men. If not, they will make blunders enough, thinking them sanctity. Also they ought to arrange for their nuns to go to confession to learned men.

Well, on the Eve of All Saints, in the year which I have said above, about midday, we arrived in the city of Salamanca. From our lodging I sent for a good man there, called Nicholas Gutierrez, of whom I had requested that he would get the house cleared for us. He was a great servant of God, who by his good life had gained from His Majesty peace and contentment amid great troubles, for he had been through many: he had seen great prosperity, and had come to poverty, and bore himself in it as cheerfully as in his riches. He laboured much in this foundation with abundant devotion and good will.

When he came, he told me that the house was not yet empty, for he had not been able to get the students to turn out of it. I told him how important it was that they should give it up to us at once, before it became known that I was in the town; for I always went in fear of some hindrance, as I have said. He went to the lady who owned the house, and made such efforts that it was left empty that very evening; and about nightfall we entered it. It was the first convent which I founded without reserving the Blessed Sacrament; because I used to think that it was not taking possession if It was not reserved, but now I had learned that that did not matter. This was a great comfort to me, seeing how unfit for it the students had left the place. They cannot have been at all nice in their ways: for the house was in such a state that we had no little work that night1. Next morning early the first mass was said, and I sent to fetch more nuns, who were to come from Medina del Campo.

The night of All Saints' Day I and my companion remained in the house alone. I can tell you, Sisters, that it makes me inclined to laugh when I think of the terror of my companion, Maria of the Sacrament, who was a nun older than I, a great servant of God. The house was very large and rambling, and had many garrets2, and my companion could not get the students out of her head, thinking that, as they were so angry at having to go out of the house, one of them might have hidden in it. They could very well have done so as regards hiding places. We locked ourselves into a room where there was straw, which was the first thing I had provided for founding the house, because with it we could do without a bed. We slept in it that night with a blanket apiece which had been lent us.

Next day some nuns who lived next door, who, we had thought, would not like our coming, lent us bedclothes for our companions who were coming, and gave us alms: and all the time that we were in that house they bestowed on us many kindnesses and alms. The name of their house was Saint Isabel3.

When my companion found herself locked into that room, she seemed to be a little reassured as to the students; yet notwithstanding, she did nothing but look from one side to the other: and the evil spirit must have helped to put thoughts of dangers into her mind in order to upset me; for with my weak heart, a little suffices. I asked her why she was looking about, when nobody could get in. She said, " Mother, I am thinking, if I died here now, what would you do all alone? ' This, if it should come to pass, seemed to me a dreadful thing. It made me reflect a little, and be frightened too; for even when I am not nervous, dead bodies always give me a curious feeling, even when I am not alone. And with the tolling of the bells into the bargain — for, as I said, it was the night of All Souls — the devil got a good start for making us lose our wits with childish trifles: when he sees that people are not afraid of him himself, he seeks other devices. I answered her, " Sister, when this comes to pass, I will think what to do: now let me go to sleep." As we had had two bad nights, sleep soon drove away our fears. Next day they were ended by the arrival of more nuns.

The convent was in that house three years, or it may have been four; for I remember very little about it, because I was sent to the Incarnation at Avila4. I never, of my own will, would leave any convent, nor have I ever left one, until I could leave it in a house of its own, enclosed and fitted up to my liking. For in this God has given me the grace to like to be always foremost in the labour of it, and I have got together everything, even to the most trifling things, for the nuns' comfort and convenience, just as if I myself had to live all my life in that house: and so it has always given me great pleasure when they were settled in very well.

I felt deeply for what those Sisters suffered at Salamanca: not for lack of maintenance, for I saw to that from where I was, because the house was quite out of the way for alms; but for want of health, because the house was damp and very cold, and as it was so large this could not be remedied; and the worst was, that the Blessed Sacrament was not reserved, which, under such strict enclosure, is a great deprivation. This was not the Sisters' feeling, but they bore all with a contentment to praise God for: and some of them said to me that it seemed to them wrong to wish for another house, for they lived there as happily as if they had had the Blessed Sacrament.

Well, the Superior, seeing their goodness and the troubles which they endured, and moved with pity, sent to the Incarnation for me. The nuns had already arranged with a gentleman there to let them have a house, only it was one which needed more than a thousand ducats to be spent on it before they could go into it. It was entailed property, but the owner agreed that we should be allowed to enter it, even if the king's licence should not have arrived, and that we might very well put up walls. Father Julian of Avila, the one who, as I have said, used to go with me to these foundations, had come with me, and I arranged that he should accompany me that we might see the house, to say what had to be done; for I understand these matters well by reason of my experience.

We went in August, and with all the haste we could make, we had come to Michaelmas, which is the time when houses in those parts are let, and yet the house was not finished by a long way; but as we had not hired the one we were in for another year, another tenant had already taken it, and was hurrying us. The whitewashing of the chapel was all but finished. The gentleman who had sold us the house was away. Certain people who wished us well told us that we were acting unwisely in departing so soon: but where needs must, counsels can ill be taken if no remedy is provided. We removed on Michaelmas Eve, a little before daybreak. It was already made known abroad that Michaelmas would be the day when the Blessed Sacrament was to be reserved, and who the preacher was to be. It pleased the Lord that in the evening of the day when we removed there was such violent rain that carrying across the necessary things was done with difficulty. The chapel was newly built, and it was so badly roofed that most of it let the rain through. I can tell you, daughters, that I found myself very imperfect that day: for as the date had been given out, I did not know what to do; but I kept on lamenting, and I said to our Lord, as it were complaining, That I would He would either not command me to engage in these works, or would set this trouble right. That good man Nicholas Gutierrez, in his equanimity, as if it were nothing, told me very gently not to distress myself, for God would set it right. And so it was: for on Michaelmas Day, at the time when the people were to come, the sun began to shine. This moved me to devotion, and I saw how much better that dear good man had done with his trust in our Lord than I with my worry. There were a great many people and there was music, and the Blessed Sacrament was reserved with great solemnity. And as this house was well situated5, the convent began to be known and cared for: in particular, the Countess of Monterey, Dona Maria Pimentel, favoured us greatly, and a lady named Dona Mariana, whose husband was mayor.

The very next day, to temper our joy at having the Blessed Sacrament, came the gentleman who owned the house, so furious that I did not know what to do with him, and the devil would not allow him to listen to reason — for we had fulfilled all our agreement with him. Of little use was it to try to tell him so. When certain people had talked to him, he was a little pacified, but afterwards went back to his former mind. I made up my mind to leave the house to him, but this pleased him no better, because he wanted the money given him immediately6. It was his wife's house, and she had wished to sell it for the benefit of two daughters, and it was on this ground that they had asked for the licence. The money had been deposited with the person whom he had named.

It has turned out that, although this was more than three years ago, the purchase is not yet completed, nor do I know whether the convent will stay there7 (that is why I mention this), I mean to say in that house, or where it will settle. What I do know is that in no convent of the primitive Rule which the Lord has yet founded have the nuns been through so much by a long way. Those who are there are, by God's mercy, so good that they bear it all cheerfully. May it please His Majesty that this may be to their advancement! For it matters little whether we have a good house or not: rather

Pedro de la Vanda by marital right and by his claim for a share of the income of the house in case of his wife's death, may have tried to stop the granting of the King's license to break the mayorazgo. So far as I know, the ground of his objection to the bargain that his wife had made with the Nuns and Ana de la Encarnacion was that the purchase money ought to be paid down and not by instalments.

I think I should add that the " Licencia Marital " of the husband was necessary before a wife could legally alienate the property belonging to her, not only because in case of her death he had a fourth life interest in the usufruct but also by derecho marital. If the husband unreasonably withheld this license the wife had the right of recourse to the tribunals, which could if necessary authorise the sale if desired by the wife-owner independently of the husband's permission.

"What happened in the present case, as I gather, was that Pedro de la Vanda did not desire to quash the sale but to exert his right to modify the terms which his wife had made with the nuns. MARTIN HUME.] it is a great pleasure when we find ourselves in a house which we can be turned out of, remembering how the Lord of the world had no house. The being in a house which was not our own has sometimes happened to us, as may be seen in the story of these Foundations; and it is the truth that I have never seen a nun distressed about it. May it please His Divine Majesty that we may not fail to attain the eternal mansions, of His infinite goodness and mercy. Amen, amen.

Footnotes

  1. One of these students was afterwards a Bishop, Don Juan Moriz, of Barbastro. In the fifth volume of the Ano Teresiano, p. 74, there is an interesting letter by him, in which (he was asking for St Theresa's canonization) he says, " Forty years ago, when I was a student at Salamanca, I turned out of the house where I was lodging that she might come in to found a convent." ↩

  2. The house, which to this day bears St Theresa's name, is between the churches of San Juan de Barbalos and that of St Thomas, now demolished. The house is even worse and more inconvenient than in St Theresa's time, the entrance to it being across an open sewer. ↩

  3. They were Franciscan Tertiaries. Although the house was suppressed in 1857, it has since been re-established. There were houses of this Rule at Béjar and other places: and they still exist at Alba de Tormes, where the cell is still shewn in which St Theresa slept when she went to make her foundation there. The habit is violet or mulberry, in memory of the queen St Elizabeth. ↩

  4. This was in 1571. She was sent for to be Prioress. ↩

  5. It was opposite the Convent of the Madre de Dios, therefore near the beautiful but now dismantled Palace of Monterey. St Theresa stayed in this palace for some time, and in it she worked a great miracle. The convent was afterwards demolished when the Count de Fuentes built the magnificent convent of Recollet Augustinians. T. F. 9 ↩

  6. [The fundamental laws of Castile (the Siete Partidas) and the Leyes de Toro which were in operation almost unchanged in the Nueva Recopilación of the time of Philip II, gave to married women absolute right to the enjoyment of all property belonging to them, whether entailed (de Mayorazgo) or not, during their life. There existed, however, a certain right of the husband after the death of his wife to a life interest in a portion (one-fourth) of the usufruct of the estate, and this of course gave the husband a pretext in some cases for interfering in the disposal of the property by the wife to whom it belonged. This I gather is what happened in the case of Pedro de la Vanda. He was absent from Salamanca when his wife made the bargain to sell the house to Ana de la Encarnacion, but when he returned as the Nuns were moving in — St Teresa having then arrived — he apparently, considering that the purchase price ought to be paid down instead of by instalments, raised the objections he did to the terms and plunged the poor Nuns into the long and ruinous litigation that ensued. St Teresa herself in one of her letters says that the origin of the trouble was a dispute between D. Pedro and his wife, the latter being content to abide by the bargain that she herself had made, whilst her husband was not. When a mayorazgo was what is called a "Mayorazgo Regular," in CASTILE only, the succession of the entail followed the old Spanish tradition by which females inherited after males (as in the case of the crown of England) and this form of entail could only be broken by obtaining a royal license on the petition of the owner and the heirs in tail then in existence. This was, however, purely a matter of payment and form when the parties interested were agreed. I do not know, but it is possible that ↩

  7. As a matter of fact, it did not; and in letters written by the Saint in latter years can be seen what difficulty there was in finding a house, until they built the convent which they still possess outside the walls. This was partly laid in ruins by the Portuguese last century during the wars of succession, with the rest of the suburb of Villamayor. 9—2 ↩

Chapter 20 of 32